Piecework

Description

In the world of heavy metal, few bands exploit dynamics and silence with as much brilliance as Kowloon Walled City. Since forming 15 years ago, the band has honed its deconstructed approach to noise rock, math rock, and doom, sharing bills with equally avant-garde acts like Neurosis, Yob, Sleep, Sumac, and Thou. With Piecework (Neurot Recordings/Gilead Media), their fourth album and first in six years, Kowloon Walled City reaches new heights of restraint. The tracks are dark and slow, but also shorter and more concise (seven songs clock in at around 30 minutes). There are passages of near-silence. While the band has always favored simplicity, it has pushed this philosophy even further on Piecework. Singer/guitarist Scott Evans and guitarist Jon Howell, the primary songwriters, imposed restrictions on themselves to push their creative limits—"constraining ourselves into oblivion," as Howell puts it. The songs are written in more direct time signatures. Evans and Howell also changed their guitar setups for a sound that is more "clean and metallic." Stripped of all excess, the essentials remain: drums resonating in a room, bass strings vibrating, a solitary guitar chord. At times, the whole thing is almost oppressively desolate. But this emptiness also amplifies the bursts of intense aggression that define Piecework. Howell's angular guitar notes escape the fretboard and dissolve into space. Ian Miller's bass lines sink into the mud. Dan Sneddon's crashing drums and cymbals punctuate the silences. (Sneddon, a former member of Early Graves, makes his recorded debut with the band five years after joining.) There is sadness and anger in Evans' shouted vocals, but also a longing for a better future. Through resignation and regret, Piecework also hints at perseverance and hope. In "Utopian," partly inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson's sci-fi novel Red Mars, Evans declares: "now we're weightless, left to dead / there's no sorry songs left"—a fatalistic statement, or perhaps a rallying cry, as if to say: we get it, everything is fucked—now what? Evans was grieving his father's death while writing the album. He drew strength from the women in his life, especially his maternal grandmother, who worked for 40 years in a Kentucky shirt factory while raising five children. The album's title (and the title track) is a nod to her work and quiet resilience. The lyrics, however, are not overtly personal; they weave in references to family, friends, music (Low, Willie Nelson, The Breeders, The Court and Spark, Radiohead), books (by Kim Stanley Robinson, historian Howard Zinn, English poet Thomas Hood), computer pioneer Ken Thompson, and early 1970s computer security analysis articles. Themes of absence and death, accepting aging, family strength and love are all embodied in the album's cover art, created by photographer Melyssa Anishnabie: the dilapidated beauty of an abandoned house reveals the remnants of a past life. Evans compares it to his grandparents' slowly decaying home. As with all previous KWC albums, Evans recorded and mixed Piecework. (He has also worked with Yautja, Thrice, Great Falls, Ghoul, Town Portal, and many others.) And as with the albums Container Ships (2012) and Grievances (2015), the tracks were recorded live at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, with minor overdubs. "There aren't many tricks," Evans said. "No need to force enthusiasm or originality. Let what's already there be exciting and unique." From this perspective, the band has clearly succeeded. Piecework stands not only as an artistic achievement, but also as a triumph of perseverance and vision.